Nurses thankful for support

A sincere thank you to The Amherst Bee for conducting the recent opinion poll of Amherst Central School District parents and taxpayers on the very important issue of providing essential nurse staffing at our five private schools, as required by law. In the end, the results by an overwhelming percentage of 92 to 8 favored retaining the status quo by not cutting the number of nurses or the hours of care they provide to our school children. We believe enabling the voices on both sides of the issue to be heard by school district officials and board members through published polling results, is as it should be in a democratic society and community.

Full-time nurses at all of our schools, public and private, is an essential service to the health, welfare and education of all children. It should not be diminished for negligible cost savings, and it must be continued as a top priority. The medical needs of school children today are more serious, complex and constant than ever before. We cannot expect students to excel at learning unless their daily and emergency health needs receive the skilled attention of the school nurses that our district now provides.

Finally, our heartfelt appreciation goes out to the concerned parents, the dedicated teachers, our courageous elected town officials and the ever hardworking private school administrators who worked tirelessly to convince school district officials and School Board members that this year's proposal or any future proposal for that matter, to cut nursing services for students is profoundly ill-advised.
Carol Skretny
School Nurse
Christ the King School
(Editor's note: The letter was
signed "The Amherst Central
School District public and private
school nurses.)